Top 5 Inbound Marketing Articles to Start the Week: Social Media Fear

Does the thought of engaging your business in social media leave you (or your boss) trembling with goose bumps?

In this week's top inbound marketing article, Valeria Maltoni discusses why fear is common in social media adoption and how (and why) organizations should get over this fear.

1. How to Get Over Your Fears of Social Media

Author: Valeria Maltoni of Conversation Agent

Valeria's article addresses a common sentiment toward social media for newbies: fear. Because social media is abstract and can be overwhelming at first, says Maltoni, it's understandable that businesses would be scared to get involved.

She therefore discusses a recent experience of hers about how she helped moderate a discussion among professionals about social media, its uses for business , and why companies should get over their fears and use it to their advantage. She also divulges a few quick tips to help organizations get over their fears and get involved.

Marketing Takeaway: Social media can be scary at first. Come up with some guidelines to make you feel comfortable; then dig in!

2. 4 Ways to Use Twitter to Support Your Blog

Author: Georgina Laidlaw on ProBlogger

Okay, so maybe you're already using your Twitter feed to help promote your blog posts, but are you really taking full advantage of Twitter to support your blogging efforts?

Georgina's article highlights several more unconventional ways to get more out of your Twitter account for your blog, which include telling the story of blog content creation, tweeting interesting comment responses, running a Twitter competition tie-in, and creating a Twitter conversation around an event.

Marketing Takeaway: Be creative in your Twitter strategy, and don't be afraid to try different ways of promoting your content.

3. 7 Ways to Acquire the Right Kinds of Links to Your Site

Author: John Jantsch on Duct Tape Marketing Blog

We've said it before and we'll say it again -- inbound links are important . Period. But how do you generate inbound links, and how do you generate good ones? John's article describes 7 ways:

1. Write a blog.
2. Guest post on other blogs.
3. Submit posts and articles to directories .
4. Write social press releases.
5. Leave lots of relevant comments.
6. Create profiles.
7. Use social bookmarking.

Marketing Takeaway: Inbound links are important criteria for off-page SEO. Make an effort to start generating some high-quality links back to your site.

4. How to Grow a Following With Other People’s Popular Content

Author: Jamie Beckland on Social Media Examiner

This Social Media Examiner article is all about content curation, and it's a good one. Ever get tired of the pressure to create new content day-in and day-out? Why not start incorporating content curation into your blogging strategy ?

Content curation is simply the practice of "reviewing and filtering articles and blog posts from across the web," and no, it's not "stealing" content from others. For a deeper look into the wonders of content curation, how it can work for you, and how to do it successfully, take a look at Jamie's article.

Marketing Takeaway: Content curation is a great strategy for driving traffic to your blog, but use in moderation.

5. Why Social CRM Needs to Be Less About the Social and More About the Customers

Author: Kevin Troy Darling on Convince & Convert

With all the recent buzz about social CRM (sCRM), Kevin's article takes a step back and dares to say that, while social media is a helpful addition to CRM software, the real focus should be on the "C" in the abbreviation.

As marketers, he says, we need to be reaching our customers where they are, and yes, the potential of social media to help achieve this is unquestionable. However, it's how we use this technology that matters, and that means effectively targeting your audience with the right messages for different social media.

Marketing Takeaway: Social media can be helpful for customer relationship management, but it's not the most important thing.

Photo Credit: Jordan Pérez Órdenes

Webinar: How to Sell Social Media to Your Boss

Social media guru Chris Brogan explains how to demonstrate the value of social media marketing. Download the free webinar to learn how to get your company started with social media.